L.A. Metro announces new bus lanes on 5th and 6th Streets coming to downtown L.A.

June 23, 2020
The improvement project will make needed road improvements and add bus-only lanes, as well as protected bike lanes.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Authority (Metro) and the city of Los Angeles are partnering to help improve 5th and 6th Streets in downtown Los Angeles, with the goal to enhance mobility and safety for people who walk, bike, ride transit or drive in the area.

L.A. Metro says up to 80 buses per hour use 6th Street and up to 70 buses per hour use 5th St. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has been supportive of the project, which advances the goals of Executive Directive 25, L.A.’s Green New Deal.

The 5th St/6th St Improvement Project is located between Flower Street on the west and Central Avenue on the east, and will make needed road improvements and add bus only lanes to the corridor, as well as protected bike lanes from Spring Street to Central Avenue to better connect the eastern portion of downtown to the rest of the bike lane network.

Moving from west to east, StreetsLA construction crews began their repaving work last week on 6th Street and will be working on 5th Street this week. Construction activity will continue through the end of the month, and is scheduled for weekdays only from 6:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. In early July, Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) will begin restriping the lanes and installing bus-only lanes and protected bike lanes on both streets.

This project is one of the many recommendations resulting from the Bus Speed Engineering Working Group, authorized by the L.A. Metro Board of Directors and the L.A. City Council in July 2019. It is a collaborative effort between L.A. Metro and LADOT to identify, design, fund and implement transit supportive infrastructure to speed up transit service as part of the NextGen Bus Plan.